


Route 38

by apprepuff



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Fatherly Kenny, Fluff, Gen, Kenny is alive, Sarah Lives (Walking Dead: All That Remains), ben paul lives, this takes place like a year before the events of season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 17:39:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18529921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprepuff/pseuds/apprepuff
Summary: Two years after the events of A New Frontier, Clementine is still wandering, searching for a safe place. At least she’s not doing it alone.





	Route 38

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, I fucking wrote something!!! I started and finished this all in one go, and it took about two and a half hours. I also wanted to write something where Ben and Sarah lived, since they’re my friend Valerie’s favourite characters and they deserved so much better. I hope you enjoy!! :3

“Route 38”. That was what the road sign read. Where it led, Clementine wasn’t sure. How long had they been walking down Route 38? Long enough for her old pair of shoes to wear away. She was beyond lucky that she had managed to find another pair that fit her. Duck-patterned socks weren’t exactly the most ideal footwear for a zombie apocalypse.

 

Six years had passed now since Clementine had first lost her parents. Six years since she had lost Sandra, her beloved childhood babysitter. Six years since she had lost Lee, the only reason why she was even still alive.

 

She was fifteen now. It felt like a lifetime ago since she had been just a little girl, hiding up in her treehouse that Sandra and her family had built for her for her fourth birthday, living off of saltines, peanut butter, and crackers and cheese, waiting for her mommy and daddy to come back home and take her to a safe place where the monsters at the bottom of the ladder couldn’t get her.

 

She had been wandering down Route 38 for the past two years, never knowing where she was going or where she was going to stop. She had met people, found communities, made friends, even stayed for a while in kind communities such as Prescott or Richmond, but something always told her that these safe havens weren’t her place.

 

She wasn’t sure why she thought like this, especially when all of the people she had met in these communities were so kind. But something in her head told her, time and time again, to always keep moving. And so, that led to where she was now.

 

Clementine turned her head up slightly, groaning a bit as the light of the sky stung her sleep-heavy eyes. The first thing she noticed was that Kenny’s hat was off. It laid on the ground by his side.

 

How long had they been resting here, sitting by the side of the road? How long had Kenny been watching over them in silence while they rested? Several hours, at least. It had been daylight when they had arrived here and decided to rest their legs, after walking for over sixteen hours. Now the sky was turning orange and pink, the warm colours mixing like watercolours behind fluffy cumulus clouds.

 

Clementine heard someone stir, and flicked her gaze over to her side. There laid Sarah, asleep with her head on Kenny’s leg, the man having put one arm on her back.

 

The girl Clementine had met in a cabin what seemed like a thousand years ago was no longer a girl, at least physically. She was now an intelligent young woman, having learned medicinal skills from books they had scavenged and what her father, Carlos, had passed down to her.

 

Back when Carlos had first died right in front of her in the horde outside of Howe’s Hardware, Clementine hadn’t thought that Sarah could ever recover. She had always been sheltered by him, and seeing him get shot and devoured, his life ripped away like it was nothing, had broken her.

 

But Clem had never given up on her friend, even when Jane had. And it had paid off.

 

Now she was here, sleeping on Kenny’s lap on the side of the abandoned road. Healing, helping, and surviving.

 

Clementine tried to roll over in Kenny’s lap, attempting to go back to sleep for a few more hours before they had to get moving again. Her movement seemed to snap the previously silent Kenny back to the present. He looked down at her and saw that she was awake, smiling gently down at the girl.

 

“Mornin’, darlin’,” he whispered. “Or, evening, I guess. You doin’ okay?”

 

Clementine nodded. “I’m fine, Kenny... where’s Ben...?”

 

“Hey, Clem.”

 

Clem turned her head slowly, leaning back to look behind Kenny. Ben was sat back-to-back with him, his old letterman jacket that he still wore from the old days tattered and dirty. His hair had grown out since the last time he had cut it, and he held a handgun in one of his hands. Clementine assumed that he was watching the trees for any threats that Kenny couldn’t spot.

 

The young man gave her a tired smile, which the girl returned. “Morning, Ben. How are you and AJ holding up..?”

 

Ben looked down to the small toddler in his lap, the young man’s free arm wrapped around him. AJ was, luckily, fast asleep.

 

“No nightmares yet. Can’t say the same for Sarah, though. Poor girl woke up about twenty minutes ago in a cold sweat.”

 

Clementine sighed in sympathy. “Was it the Carlos dream again...?”

 

Ben nodded sadly. “Yeah. It was the Carlos dream. She’s still healing after all this time. I don’t blame her, of course, but I wish I could help her out more.”

 

Kenny turned his head slightly to look at Ben. “You’re helpin’ her out all you can, and you know that. Don’t be so hard on yourself, shitbird. That’s my job.”

 

Ben and Clementine both chuckled as Kenny cracked a smile.

 

“Thanks, Ken,” Ben hummed.

 

“Don’t mention it,” came the reply.

 

Ben turned his attention back to the baby, as Clementine looked up at Kenny. He noticed, and looked down to meet her gaze. “Something on your mind, Clementine?” the older man questioned.

 

Clem nodded, and looked at Sarah once again, then to the dusty road that no cars drove down anymore.

 

“What do we do if there’s nothing at the end of this road, Kenny...? We’ve been following it for ages. What if we end up somewhere dangerous? What if we all don’t make it there? What’s our backup plan...?”

 

Kenny didn’t expect that response. He thought for a moment, taking his hand off of Sarah’s back to stroke his beard as he pondered. After a few seconds, he smiled, and gently placed his hand back down onto the slumbering Sarah.

 

“We turn back. Keep walking, running, dodging, all the way back down this road.” He looked down the way they came. No people, cars, or walkers to be seen. It was eerie, but indeed a nice change of pace. Peace and quiet was something that Clementine and her family couldn’t get enough of these days.

 

“Maybe we’ll go see your friends back in Richmond. Maybe pay that old ski lodge a visit, see if those supplies are still there. Hell, maybe we can even make a break for Florida, or Canada, or somethin’. Heard from a cousin up in Manitoba that the winter temps are cold enough to freeze walkers in their tracks, and after all the shit we’ve dealt with, I think that’d be a nice advantage to have.”

 

“Canada does sound nice...” Clementine contemplated. “It’d be nice to be somewhere new. Then again, we all know how travelling worked out for you last time.”

 

“Aw, c’mon, Clem, that was years ago! Wouldn’t you like to find someplace where you didn’t have to worry about being snuck up on?”

 

“Next thing you know, you’ll be suggesting that we find a boat.”

 

“Hey now, don’t send me on a nostalgia trip just yet. We’ll need a hell of a lot of supplies if we’re gonna get anywhere on a boat.”

 

“I’m sure Canada will be a nice break from all of the chaos. I heard the folks up there are nice. Maybe they have a community up there. Like Wellington.”

 

“Except they’ll actually let us in this time?”

 

The teenager laughed. “Hopefully. But all I know is that as long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.”

 

Kenny smiled down at the girl he loved so dearly. “You’re damn right. I don’t know if I’d even still be around without you stupid kids.”

 

Clementine stuck her tongue out, and her guardian laughed. “Alright, alright, put that away. I take it back. You’re not “stupid kids”.”

 

“Wait for it...”

 

“You’re _my_ stupid kids.”

 

 _“There_ we go.” Clementine laughed and wrapped her arms around the older man.

 

“I love you, Dad.”

 

“And I love you too, my darling Clementine. Now get some rest. We’ve only got an hour or so before it gets dark.”

 

Clem nodded and rested her head against Kenny’s chest, letting the soft breeze and the assurance that her friends would protect her lull her to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> lol me and val aren’t friends anymore (she blocked me when she found out i’m not an anti, that hurt but sorry not sorry) but i still might make a longer fic based off of this :3


End file.
